Dragon Boat Clinic at Paragon Club

Flesuras is the head of Dragon Boat Training Inc, based in Portland, Oregon. Her visit is supported by a grant from the United States Embassy to the North Eastern Dragon Boaters Association (NEDBA), which has participated in dragon boat racing activities since 2012.

The clinic aims to empower youths who want to become dragon boat racing coaches. Over 40 youths and 20 coaches from the Guaico Secondary School, North Eastern College, Sangre Grande Secondary School, Matura Police Youth Club, Bishop Anstey High School East and Trinity College East, will learn skills in paddling, coaching and caller/drumming.

The sessions will be both theoretical and practical, with the practical workshops taking place at Paragon Sports and Cultural Club.

Shallona Shallowe, a director at NEDBA and a 2013 Fellow of the Community Solutions programme, which was sponsored by the Bureau of the Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State, said, “after working with Girls Inc in Houston, Texas, inspiring girls to be strong, smart, and bold, I vowed when I returned home to Trinidad to focus my work on building sport leadership amongst rural women and increasing female participation in sports.” She continued, “we are particularly pleased with the number of female paddlers and coaches who are participating in the programme. Women are often under-represented in sport leadership activities and this training is an opportunity to get them involved at the coaching level.”

The training sessions led by Flesuras are an excellent opportunity for the participants to build on their skills, especially as many of them seek to participate in forthcoming local dragon boat racing regattas and at the second Pan American Dragon Boat Championships in Welland, Ontario, according to Shallowe.

“The participants are very enthusiastic!” Flesuras said in anticipation of her visit. “I look forward to sharing my skills and knowledge and hearing about their experiences dragon boating in the Salybia River. (Today) and Sunday we will see them put their skills to the test as we close the programme.”